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In June of 2000 a group of French university students published a petition protesting the narrow scope of the economics they were being taught, calling for educators to adopt a more “pluralist” approach to the subject. This book consists of nine documents or “manifestos," including the original petition, forming the basis of the “post-autistic economics” movements, as well as 43 brief essays by prominent academics discussing the movement. As it is impossible to do justice to such a diverse body of material in a brief review such as this one, I will simply draw attention to particular highlights and general themes in the book.The four bullet points of the student's petition are:1. We wish to escape from imaginary worlds!2. We oppose the uncontrolled use of mathematics!3. We are for a pluralism of approaches to economics!4. Call to teachers to wake up before it is too late!(Yes, each item really ends in an exclamation point.)

What sports league included such teams as the Duluth Eskimos, the Dayton Triangles, the Evansville Crimson Giants, the Tonawanda Cardax, the Oorang Indians, the Rock Island Independents, and the Kenosha Maroons?

James Ostrokowski:"Of course, I care about Florida only as it affects the Revolution. Oddly enough, regardless of who wins tonight, there are positive ramifications for Ron Paul.

"If McCain wins, then Romney is toast and we can start the one-on-one against a candidate with a long list of flaws.

"If Romney wins, the race remains chaotic and unpredictable with a deadlocked convention at least possible. A Romney win gives Huckabee some encouragement so he will stay in and split the delegates in Southern states. Also, if Romney wins, McCain and Huckabee will have difficulty raising money which also helps Ron Paul."

OK, so McCain has won. If everyone else is really done, then you can tally all of their voters in his column, and the Florida results read:

McCain 97%Paul 3%

So now let's start "one-on-one against a candidate with a long list of flaws." With his current lead, I think we can catch him by the 2060 election!

"It was OK for the MSM (main-stream media) to cover Ron Paul's campaign as long as there was no voting taking place. After all, they have to have SOMETHING to talk and write about, and all the other candidates sing the same old boring tune. But once the voting started there has indeed been a complete MSM blackout."

Google News, as of a minute ago -- I have snipped out the "non-MSM" hits):

Pretty much the entire LewRockwell.com blog is showing severe symptoms of a cult mindset on all Ron Paul matters. They react to any criticism of Paul just like I saw the Church of Scientology doing years ago to any criticism of L. Ron Hubbard:1) Make no effort at all to find out if the criticism has a basis in fact, e.g., no one at the blog asks, "Did Lew Rockwell really write those newsletters?" No, because there's no time to do that, being busy with 2 and 3:2) Viciously smear the reputation and character of anyone who reports bad news (in Scientology we used to label them 'suppressive persons' and the Church would dig up (or make up) any tawdry detail from their past that they could); and3) Invent far-fetched conspiracy theories to explain the "attack" on their messiah, e.g., the American Psychiatric Association was out to get Hubbard, or the "Cocktopussy" is out to get Paul.

"I am so in favor of the actual infinite that instead of admitting that Nature abhors it, as is commonly said, I hold that Nature makes frequent use of it everywhere, in order to show more effectively the perfections of its Author. Thus I believe that there is no part of matter which is not - I do not say divisible - but actually divisible; and consequently the least particle ought to be considered as a world full of an infinity of different creatures."-Georg Cantor

The New York Giants were inside the Green Bay five-yard line, maybe at around the two. The Packers jumped offside. Normally, that would be a five-yard penaty, but inside the defensive team's five, it's half the distance to the goal line. The teams line up again. Green Bay jumps offside again. Half the distance.

"Hey," I said to my friend Sandy, with whom I was watching the game, "the Packers are implementing the Zeno strategy!" I figured, they knew the Giants were going to score and take the lead unless they did something desperate, so they intended to continue jumping offside forever, allowing the Giants ever closer to the goal line but never able to cross it.

That whimsy brought up an interesting point: What could be done about a team really trying to implement such a strategy. Say, there's twenty seconds left in a game, and the team trailing by four has a first-and-inches to the goal line. The defensive team figures there's no way to stop each of f…

So I was listening to Sean Hannity after picking my son up from his "school" (it's only two days a week). Commenting on the Obama / Clinton sniping during the recent debate, Hannity said something like, "Where do these two get off distancing themselves from the ideas of Ronald Reagan? He won the Cold War--what's wrong with that? He gave us the longest peacetime economic expansion in history. Why is that bad?"

That's amazing. Reagan won a war and simultaneously had a peacetime expansion. No wonder Hannity likes him.

"The St. Petersburg Times (Florida) reports on a 75-year-old grandmother who was arrested for "disorderly conduct" because she refused an officer's orders to move her car while she waited for coffee and fries at the drive-through window of her local McDonald's. The officer was behind her in line and (presumably) wanted to get his food but Jean Merola was parked where a McDonalds employee had told her to wait for her order and she wasn't budging. Merola wascuffed for what she estimates was an hour, searched, booked, fingerprinted, photographed and her car cost $160 to reclaim from impound. In explaining why she didn't "respect" the police officer's demand, Merola said, "I guess I felt he wasn't a police officer. He wasn't there to help me, he was there to be mean to me." If only more people reached that moment of wisdom and, then, generalized it to the entire force."

I've wanted to comment on the recent revelations about the Ron Paul Newsletter, but I've been busy with school and being a host to my Brazilian cousin in the past week. I had heard of these newsletters awhile back, but was convinced that the staffer who wrote these racist remarks, which I had never read, was promptly fired, end of story. I've browsed lewrockwell.com for many years now, since I was in highschool, and aside from an article on immigration that I felt was extremely offensive (and I emailed Lew about) I haven't seen anything very objectionable printed. I find it unsettling that Lew Rockwell was apparently responsible for the newsletters and has not explained or apologized for them.

Unearthing these newsletters is not a smear, just journalism. This is newsworthy and I think libertarians ought to be grateful that it was Julian Sanchez and David Weigel who dug it up. I volunteered for the Ron Paul campaign, but the libertarian movement is more important t…

'Well, yesterday was interesting. My Hispanic cleaning lady told me that "she would like to be for Obama, but he's a dangerous Muslim." She was sure of it and had heard it on the radio many times. . .'

I truly was not looking for things about me... I had googled "Lew Rockwell" to see what the top chatter was (for obvious reasons), and one of the first hits was Jonah Goldberg's "Farewell" piece in which he referred to me as a "no-talent ass-clown." Ahhhhh. I couldn't find this a week after it first ran, and assumed they took it down.

(BTW Jonah links to an article that is no longer up. When I entered the real world I asked that my angry young man articles be taken down to protect the innocent.)

The final straw: "Last week, a statement was prepared by Ron Paul’s press secretary Jesse Benton, and approved by Ron Paul, acknowledging Lew Rockwell as having a role in the newsletters. The statement was squashed by campaign chairman Kent Snyder."

Man, Paul's behavior regarding these newsletters has been awful. His "I don't know who wrote these" is about as slippery as a politician can get. Everyone who was around libertarianism in the early 90s knows Lew was in charge of these and knows Rothbard and his crew were into race-baiting back then. (By the way, notice that the longer Lew has been away from Rothbard's influence, the more decent he's become? I personally have found him very affable, and I can't imagine him putting out material like this today. Just shows what hanging around Rothbard can do to you.)

Paul's got a decent message, but he's the wrong vehicle for delivering it.

Ron Paul finished second in yesterday's Nevada caucuses with 14% of the vote. That's a great accomplishment on his part, and I'm happy he achieved it.

Still that is the highest level he will ever reach in a GOP primary. I said why that was so months ago: 2/3rds or 3/4trs of the GOP voters still largely back Bush's "war on terror." The best any candidate fundamentally at odds with that position can expect to poll among GOP voters is about 20%.

Meanwhile, in South Carolina, a state some nutjobs said Paul would "win in a landslide," or at least win, he got 4% of the vote.

As I've said before, I think Paul is the best candidate we've seen in quite a while. But the level of paranoia displayed by some of his supporters is disturbing. When the MSM (mainstream media) said Paul had no chance to win, this was said to be an attempt to suppress his campaign. (Instead of just being the truth, which is, Paul has no chance of getting the GOP nomination.) He is doing better than they initially predicted, which is great.

But now that the media are acknowledging that, from Nick Bradley we get this: "Although Paul as at 9% in the latest ARG poll in nevada, a statistical tie for third pace, the AP is raising the bar as high as possibly can [sic] for Paul in Nevada -- they wouldn't want a top 3 finish in NV to be seen as a success. Now, the MSM can dismiss a 2nd or 3rd place finish by Paul in NV as a 'suprising [sic] disappointment,' not a 'surprising showing.'"

You see, if the MSM says Paul will do well, that is also an attempt to un…

CNN reports that new Spamalot cast member Clay Aiken said, "The first time I saw it I thought it was the stupidest thing I'd ever seen in my entire life."

Clay, your first impression was totally right. While CNN claims, "The show is based on the film 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail,'" that is true only if "based on" is taken to mean "is a gross, de-based bastardization of."

And look, I don't even think MP&THG is a great movie or anything. But at least it was genuinely funny at many points. Unlike Spamalot.

Dan Johnson and Willian Thoburn showing fists of liberty in front of the Constitution Coach.

Jordan explains to us how to eat pizza and drink coke at the same time.

Dogtor Ron Paw and his entourage outside of our small HQ in Vilisca, Iowa.

Without internet, we could only catch up on news or watch youtube videos after someone went to town and downloaded everything first. We're probably watching Ron Paul on MSNBC here.

Dr. Paul talks to a crowd after the Iowa caucus results are announced. He stayed and shook everyone's hand. When things were settling down, I asked him for a story about Murray Rothbard. He told me before he decided to run for the first time, Rothbard was the first person he called. Rothbard was very excited about his running and gave him strong encouragement. We discussed his excommunication from Ayn Rand's circle and Ron Paul's seeing a Mises lecture, but only briefly. I also asked him if Rothbard and him had any arguments about anarchism, but he woul…

I'm recently back from an almost three week trip campaigning for Ron Paul. As a philosophical anarchist and defiantly proud non-voter, I should first state my reasons for going.

The United States government has grown into a tremendous beast. Nearly half of our wages and earnings are taxed before or while we spend it, our property, actions and decisions are ensnared in a dense and growing web of regulation and the loot taken from is used to finance destruction at home and abroad; I don't subscribe to the view that man is an island, common in libertarian circles due to the unfortunate influence of Ayn Rand.

The political world operates on an ideological track and an "activist" track. The American revolution was fought by men with an intense interest in the ideological foundations of liberty and men who were willing to act upon those ideals, fighting the British and eventually striving to set up a government in which our God-given rights would be practically preserved.…

Our friend Peaches just had his 85th birthday. Anthony asked him what he wanted for his birthday, and he said, "A trip to Atlantic City."

The birthday boy reads The Onion while waiting for the van.

Inside the Tropicana.

Anthony, Peaches, Duke, Jamie and Steph at the table.

Peaches was greeted by cries of, "Dominick, where have you been?" when he reached the craps table. He sat down, bought $500 of chips, and went right to work, not budging from his seat for five hours.

Three desperados at the craps table: Elijah, Duke, and Jamie.

At this point, the casino shut me down, informing me that photography inside is illegal. The worry about photos seemed excessive, but not as excessive as what I would encounter a little later:

Jamie gets some health food on the way home.

Just after taking that photo, I was shut down for the second time, by the counter guy at KFC. He must have thought my photos would reveal the Colonel's secret recipe, or something. "If Osama can make KFC,…

In the last post I said I might comment more on this, when I had more information and some perspective. But I will say that I think it looked a bit absurd for Ron Paul to say to Wolf Blitzer (part I and part II) that he had no idea who wrote those things. I am fully prepared to believe that he didn't write them himself; after all, it's not even his style. But that's all the more reason that he should have been really upset when it was brought to his attention, and at that point he certainly should've found out who was responsible.

Incidentally, I am glad Paul didn't name names. I think that would've appeared that he was trying to make a subordinate fall on the sword for his own (Paul's) political prospects. It's just that I think instead of saying he didn't know who wrote it--which makes it sound like either an obvious lie or that he really wasn't so bothered by those newsletters in the first place--he could've said something like this:

I am still digesting all of this stuff; I may or may not comment on it later. In the meantime, though, I do want to bring up something that doesn't make sense. Presumably the timing of the TNR piece was no coincidence. And yet, if the goal were to handicap Paul in the NH primary, wouldn't it make sense to run the article on Monday the 7th, rather than Tuesday the 8th? If I were trying to sway voters, I would've built in a day for the URL to be emailed around, the media to pick up on it, etc.

It is really annoying when someone confuses "i.e." with "e.g." If you are unsure, just say "in other words" for the former and "for example" for the latter. It really is important. When I read such dolts (i.e. those confusing the two) I want to take drastic measures (e.g. chew a NyQuil).

Here is an interesting blog post about evolutionary explanations for religion. I just skimmed the comments, so maybe I missed it, but I do believe that not a single person suggested that people in all times and all regions of the world tend to believe in a higher power because...there exists a higher power.

As always, I'm not trying to make the case for theism in this short blog post. This is just another hilarious example of how really bright people overlook a very obvious point. (For an analogy, nobody would be puzzled at the "evolutionary advantage" of widespread belief in the heliocentric model. And note that for most people, belief in this model doesn't convey an advantage at all--even sailors don't really need to believe it in order to accurately steer.)

One last caveat: I realize there is a distinction between organized religion and faith in God. But the existence of God would certainly shed light on why so many people throughout human history have bel…

I earlier linked to an Investor's Business Daily op ed in which I called for privatizing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. In that article, I glossed over the exact incentives that would propel private speculators to stockpile oil above ground--rather than cause producers merely to slow their extraction in the present.

"Moreover, the life of the savage, as Hobbes put it, is 'nasty, brutish, and short.' His life expectancy is very short, and his life is ravaged by all manner of disease, disease that he can do nothing about except give food to witch doctors to utter incantations."

Oops! It turns out that the life span of a "savage" was about the same as that of the average Englishman in 1800, and the "savage" was far healthier, as shown by his greater height, and worked far less to achieve about the same level of material well-being. (Source: A Farewell to Alms by Gregory Clark.) But why let facts get in the way of scoring polemical points? And note the invocation of a fake authority to b…

turned out to be exactly right! Zogby polled Ron Paul at 10% in Iowa on the second, and, lo and behold, he got 10%. And all those charges of "MSM bias"? It turns out the MSM correctly perceived Paul as a minor candidate. The folks who have been trying to trick people into believing Paul could win -- and I don't mean Bob or John, I mean some senior libertarian figures -- have been saying "He'll surprise everyone in Iowa and show how wrong the MSM is!" Well, the MSM was saying "He might get third" -- I guess he "showed them" by finishing fifth, behind the dead on the podium Fred Thompson. So now those same people are saying "This is a great finish!"

Horseshit is horseshit even when it's in support of someone with whom I largely agree.

(Just to be clear: I wish there was some chance Paul could win -- but, as I said two months ago, there isn't any such chance.)

I am a consultant now so I had applied for an individual (family) health plan. My son has a heart murmur that has never required any treatment or medication; the doctors didn't even hear it until several months after he was born. This is an excerpt from the single sheet we got from BlueCross:

Unfortunately, we cannot approve Joel's request due to medical information provided. We terminated our underwriting process once we determined that the following would result in our declining coverage:

Medical records document that Joel has been diagnosed with congenital infundibular pulmonic stenosis.

However, should the need arise, BlueCross and BlueShield reserves the right to continue the underwriting process and possibly cite other conditions as grounds for declining coverage.

I realize there are probably BS government regulations that make this profitable for them (ra…

Today's article continues my spat with David Frum over the gold standard. And I forgot to post this interview from Thanksgiving on "The Political Cesspool" radio show. I think I had had some wine by that point in the night, so my answers come from strange angles sometimes.

Our group has been sequestered from the internet, in the boondocks, for the last week. I only have a couple minutes to post an update. The caucus is tonight and there's a strange energy in the air. On the ground everything looks positive, though the media, even locally, is not giving Paul the credit he deserves. There may be a lot of talk about the "surprise" in Iowa, but on the ground there are high expectations and we should not be surprised.

There is a good article on the Ron Paul students at The New Republic, if someone can find it, if you're curious about what's happening. After this, I'm headed to South Carolina with some other Ron Paul Republicans (and a few anarchists) for their analogous student efforts. I started out a skeptic, even when Dr. Paul was doing well, but I'm beginning to think it could be possible. Apparently even Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh are starting to feel the strength and truth behind the Ron Paul revolution...

I have carpal tunnel, and typing is painful for me. Thus, every five years I try voice recognition software. It has always proved more painful than typing.

This semi-decades attempt was with iListen, supposedly the best Mac voice recognition out there. I did a half an hour of training, and the software tells me we're good to go.

I open a Word document and say, "A farewell to alms" -- the title of a book I'm reviewing. On screen appears "they have yet to evolve as"! The software achieved a match rate of 0%, a truly remarkable achievement.

UPDATE: A sentence after some additional training: "Aspects of libertarianism utilitarian signed the Senate haunted concrete check fee to tyranny cite and thing he has narrow concept the is the contending that rest, nation the to Mr. respect utility, such matters still true strictly is for and true eans this would be."

Walter Mead writes:"For the past few centuries, a global economic and political system has been slowly taking shape under first British and then American leadership. As a vital element of that system, the leading global power -- with help from allies and other parties -- maintains the security of world trade over the seas and air while also ensuring that international economic transactions take place in an orderly way. Thanks to the American umbrella, Germany, Japan, China, Korea and India do not need to maintain the military strength to project forces into the Middle East to defend their access to energy. Nor must each country's navy protect the supertankers carrying oil and liquefied national gas (LNG).

"For this system to work, the Americans must prevent any power from dominating the Persian Gulf while retaining the ability to protect the safe passage of ships through its waters. The Soviets had to be kept out during the Cold War, and the security and independence of t…